The boys were roughhousing again. Since they seem to love it so much, our rule is that as long nobody cries, they’re okay. If one makes the other cry, however, there’s trouble. This seems to be working out, at least somewhat. By “seems to be working,” I mean that now they try not to make each other cry.

Yes, that’s progress.

This particular tussling match ended with the younger brother screaming his eyes out. I dropped what I was doing and went running. I’d been watching them from the kitchen, and didn’t see how anyone could have gotten hurt. Nonetheless, there was the little guy, sitting in his chair and howling.

I ran over and asked what was wrong.

He looked up at me, sniffled, and said “Candy?”.

Um, no.

All tears gone, now, he tried his cute face (tilt the head forward, wide open eyes, look through the eye lashes), “chocolate candy?”

No.

“Little bit? Little bit of candy?” He held his fingers up to show me what a ‘little bit’ was. Trying not to laugh, I glanced over at his brother, who was intently watching this whole exchange.

Sorry, little guy. No candy.

“Little bit of chocolate candy?” He tried tilting his head sideways.

No. There are some mistakes that are easy to avoid.